The electoral avalanche with which Morena bathed the country on Sunday places us in the reality of a society that was there but we had not seen it, where the majority of those who decided the national future They confirmed the reason for the popularity of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador: He doesn’t care about almost a million deaths, nor violence, nor corruption; The separation of powers, checks and balances and accountability are irrelevant; A regime of freedoms is a thing of the past, and the rule of law is secondary. The vote for Morena consolidates López Obrador’s hybrid regime, where The division between democracy and authoritarianism is very thin.
Pablo Hiriart defined it in El Financiero as “the terrible regression“, because an electoral process that was neither fair nor balanced gave the official candidate Claudia Sheinbaum “a triumph won by the president’s unconstitutional intervention and the largest vote purchase in history.” Massive resources distributed among the electorate, induction and manipulation are some of the tools that he suggests were used to have a fraudulent election, not on Sunday, but from a long time ago. However, the data that is beginning to emerge on how some 35 million Mexicans voted allows us to reflect on whether the “regression” is something much deeper and extends beyond the social and political framework.
What caused a political tsunami much greater than the one López Obrador experienced in 2018? Many propose that they were the social programs that showered 30 million families with 25 billion pesos annually, which made sense with Sheinbaum’s proposal to build “the second floor of the transformation” and the strategy of pointing out that if the opposition won, the delivery of those resources would end. Others may consider the opponent’s failure Xochitl Galvez, who lost 2 to 1 against Sheinbaum, showing how unsuccessful their campaign approach was. Some others will be certain that the PAN, the PRI and the PRD are exhausted franchises.
The data from the exit surveys, however, propose additional reflections. Consulta Mitofsky reported that in all the segments and intersections they carried out in their survey on Sunday, Sheinbaum not only won but increased the percentages that López Obrador obtained in 2018. Only in two categories, at the high-income level and university and postgraduate students, he didn’t make it. In the first he was below Gálvez by three tenths of a point, and in the second he was 1.8 points away from tying what López Obrador had six years ago. He increased, on the other hand, the young vote from 18 to 29 years old by almost 5 points, 0.3 in those between 30 and 49, and 3.8 in those over 50.
Why, despite the fact that most of the indicators in López Obrador’s government management are negative, the president triumphed in his plebiscite and the official candidate obtained at least 4 million more votes than him in 2018? The exit poll showed an important impact of social programs, with 56.1% responding that they did receive them, although 41.9% who were not, also voted for it over Gálvez. Even if older adults, the main beneficiaries of social programs, had voted homogeneously for Sheinbaum, they barely represent 14% of the Nominal List, while the third part of the list is in the population between 19 and 34 years old – where they cross levels of schooling and social programs -, where his advantage was at least 15% over his rival.
The middle classes, systematically vilified by López Obrador, also opted for Sheinbaum over Gálvez by almost 20 points in the middle-income segment, and 16.6% above the opposition in urban areas, which had predominantly voted against López Obrador and Morena. Nor did the presidential attacks against that social group put their grievances before voting for the presidential project.
Lopez Obrador He praised citizens for asserting their rights on Sunday and deciding “freely and democratically.” The support was, as he has said on previous occasions in a Manichaean way, for “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.” That phrase, which he uses out of context, comes from Abraham Lincoln’s speech after the Battle of Gettysburg in the United States Civil War, which certainly spoke of a participatory democracy, but in the context of a political system armed with checks and balances and surrender. accounts.
This is not what López Obrador wants and what the virtual president-elect does not want, based on her speeches. The electorate less. As seen on Sunday, the majority is satisfied with the violence, corruption, deficiencies, colonization of autonomous institutions and bodies, opacity and the absence of accountability. He voted for a hybrid regime that is moving from democracy to authoritarianism, and hence Hiriart’s description of it as a “regression.” Was the people wrong?
Mexicans did not vote like the English did when they supported Brexit and the next day they asked what that was. The Mexicans voted for a system known since 2018, and support that “regression”. The question is why. There is no answer at this moment, but rather an invitation to reflect based on the premise that the values of democracy, as we know them, are no longer important and fundamental in Mexico.
The electoral avalanche shows that the popular sovereignty that Lincoln proposed – without the counterweights that he had – is what they want to define the nation where a centralized power – like that of López Obrador – crushes its adversaries and critical thinking, with a narrative that feed the sense of injustice and demand reparation, which was what led the country from polarization to political and ideological alignment. The vote was not for democracy but for authoritarianism. Let’s call him by his name. After all, it is the mandate of the ballot box.
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